The 5 W's of Personal Defense - Who?

All right Williams, let's dive in to the five W's. Sure. Who. Who is a reflection of decision you've made beforehand. It's a level of investment in this kind of, I hate to put it this way, but defensive persona.

And this is where I think a lot of people would jump right past. When we say who, they probably wanna know who's the bad guy, but this idea that you have that who we are so much informs what we should prepare for and how we should prepare is noble and I think important And it's far too easy to divide the world binarily into sheeple and armed citizens. And I think that really misses some pretty important points. On the armed citizen's side of the ledger you've got the regular Joe regular Jane, and, you know, the average knucklehead walking down the street. Are they aware that the world is not as it ought to be?

Maybe, but they're not really making a concerted effort to do anything about it. Then this sort of, I think a level up from that as a law abiding citizen. Sort of very upright, interested in the order of things as they go. A step up from that is in terms of taking responsibility but also an incurring risk is the armed citizen. Somebody who's decided to go forth in the community you know, legally carrying weapons of self-defense.

That's a tremendous decision. And I don't think we should look on people who can't cross that line. I really don't. People who refuse to take responsibility for their own self-defense in the world, it's harder to look favorably on those folks but I don't think it's helpful at all for the community to brow beat folks who will not carry a gun or will not carry weapons. Or who can, I think that's really valid too.

I occasionally on the internet get some flack for the fact that I enjoy going to Manhattan, I spend time in Chicago, I go to Europe, I get on a plane, I fly. There are times when we can't carry a gun but it doesn't mean that we can't be of the mindset that I think you're talking about of being aware of our surrounding. Exactly, and the thoughtless answer is always as you'll hear on the internet, you need to move. Yeah. So other than change my job, sell my house, I'll be fine.

Sometimes people's other decisions carry the day and I don't think it helps to make the community inclusive. It doesn't help to brow beat and call these people names. I think sheeple is one of the most offensive terms in the business myself. A step up though, even from the armed citizen is what I think of as the lawful defender. This is the person who has set a parameter that there are certain kinds of interactions that they won't tolerate without an armed response, right.

That they will not be the victim of criminal violence unopposed. And that again is another huge threshold and often folks who carry a gun have not crossed that threshold. There was a recent new story about a CCW carrier in the Midwest who drew the pistol and was shot because he was intending, when he put the gun on to do, who knows what, but it sound like he had reached that decision point in his own mind before he went to field carrying a gun. And there are some people, even in our community who sort of support this notion of, well, what kind of gun you carry doesn't matter, getting all bunch of training doesn't matter because most of the time when you show the gun the bad guy will turn tail because he expects you to be the sheep or the victim and then you show your fangs and he runs away. Is that always true?

If it works great. You know, a good defense is the one that works. Untrained, unskilled, unexplored folks, successfully defend themselves all the time. That doesn't mean that's the path we should choose. You know, we want as much slack as we can.

I want a car with the best seat belts I can get and the best airbags I can get. I'm incurring more risk. I just am. Not to mention risk of litigation but also risk that things could go wrong. I could do the wrong thing with a lethal tool, right.

A step up and I think a kind of a step in a dangerous direction is from the lawful defender to the good guy. And I know lots of folks who, when they first hear of someone carrying a gun, they think, oh I wanted to just be a cop. You're carrying a gun to compensate for the fact that you wanna tell people what to do and you think that gun gives you power. And sadly, some of the folks in the community bear that out. They are for all intents and purposes amateur policemen walking around, getting involved in things that maybe they shouldn't and forgetting what it's for is last ditch.

When any other means is available, that should be used. And so we don't want the gun deciding what my actions will be. Sure and for me, I always tell people if the gun does decide and action, it should be even more caution, even more conservative actions in terms of inserting yourself in a situation. Mm-hmm, and that's one of the oldest traps of 1970s sociology was this concept that the trigger pulls the finger. Right.

That the presence of the gun makes people do dangerous and harmful things. And we have to go, I think we have a burden as a community to go out of our way to make sure that that's not the case and purge the mindset of the notion that I am any kind of avenging angel. Right And I'm any sort of freelance protector. When you involve yourself in a situation in carrying a gun is by definition a lethal force situation, you have created one and you break it, you bought it. And so I don't think that's a decision that a lot of folks have really walked all the way through.

My goal is to have people be risk aware. What risk profiles do I fulfill and which risk profiles am I willing to fulfill? And then judge our actions and our preparations before we go out in the world, based on that. Because risk is directly related to where you fit into this who spectrum. Where you're falling is who spectrum determines the kinds of risks you will encounter.

Some of them are involuntary and then you're just talking about managing them. But as you get up to that scale toward the good guy you are actually seeking out situations. And I don't think that's recommended in just about any case. But there is obviously that part where you can be a responsibly armed citizen who is aware of the risks and certainly not out there being the Walter Mitty type, you know, would be police officer defender of the community. Sure.

And you know, an amateur police officer is to no one's benefit. It confuses the police if nothing else confuses citizens and puts yourself at risk not the least of which is the risk of the police interaction. In the five Ws, the second part of who of course, is what most people are sort of tuning in for who is the bad guy? Who are we gonna have to be dealing with? Who are we interacting with?

And who is the bad guy itself reflects kind of a narrow view of things. There are many more people in the world than the bad guy. You know, at the lowest level, I like to think of them as the artifact. It's just the people you will encounter in your daily life. A homeless guy, a teenager, a man sitting on the stoop.

Are they risks? Potentially yes, but it's that judgment that we have to factor into. And on most cases, average people are by definition average, they don't intend us any ill. And so we're gonna deal with infinitely more of those and we will have anything else. A step up in terms of potential risks, is what I think of as the pest.

Say man, can I borrow a dollar. If you're a pretty girl, hey miss, where are you going? So the past isn't necessarily a threat, but the interaction itself, we'd like to think should raise our awareness of risk, right? And might trigger a risk threshold depending on who and how you are. An elderly person, the risk threshold should be much lower.

Let's say someone who's a disabled, much lower. Above the pest is sort of the exploiter or the opportunist, aggressive panhandling. You know, it gets into a kind of a gray area where the person is becoming more overtly troubling, let's say. Someone who will not break contact. Now, is that person mentally ill and just have very poor social skills, is it a terribly lonely person at a coffee shop?

Who knows, but the length of the interaction and the intensity of the intention really starts to draw our focus. One step up is what I call the concern. Someone whose actions make me concerned. A very disorganized person, a very upset person, someone fighting, someone making aggressive or uncontrolled gestures in the street. Things like that.

I am now concerned specifically about this person. There is some risk to me and the people that I'm protecting. And last of course is the violent criminal actor. Someone whose intention is not just criminal but to hurt me to achieve his or her ends. As we're going through our daily lives, we know that that artifact, as we walk down the street, that that person that we just assume is homeless with their sleeping bag and the shopping cart full of stuff, you know, in the edge of the park could be the violent criminal actor.

Absolutely. And there's really that that's a sliding scale. Where do people start making decisions about how to respond or how to deal with the people that they're bumping into? Well, having the ability to interact with folks at every level of presentation is really pretty critical. You know, you will hear some kind of odd advice about social dynamics from people.

And like you said, that gap between ignoring things and going to guns is huge. And sometimes I hear what I call the tactical no which is that whenever anyone addresses me on the street I respond with no, or I'm not able to help you sir. Well, those are conflict initiators from-- Right, right. lots of people. So I can't really help with that.

Yes, you know I don't have the time sir. Right. Normal interaction is by definition normal and when we bring him normal to the interaction, it can go esque. And I see that a lot of classes, I see a lot of people in the classes that emphasize the escalation or the women's self-defense classes where all of a sudden you kind of sit back in those rooms or that martial arts center and you watch what they're being taught and how they're interacting. And you just know that when they're in the mall parking lot or they're at the gas station tomorrow, they're not gonna be doing that.

And if they do, somebody is gonna be calling the police on them for screaming at people and not letting anyone get within 15 feet and the reactionary gap and that's really not how we interact. The essence of of behavior is it has to be natural normal to be sustainable. And if it isn't, we won't do it. And that incongruent behavior can be one of the signs that we're moving up the chart of the hoodoo. Absolutely.

But if we bring an odd quality to an interaction to someone that we've encountered the environment, who is on the fence, let's say a mentally ill person, if we suddenly seem odd to them we can escalate them even unintentionally that's exactly the opposite of what we're shooting for. Right, so all of a sudden the awareness issue of who we're dealing with doesn't always have to be in the, or be aware of the potentially going up. Be aware that this could just be an innocent interaction. You know, oftentimes it is what it is and what it is most of the time is normal.